


The Space Between

by sospes



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Drama, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Team Feels, Torture, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solo goes missing. Illya all but panics. And Gaby's the one who holds it all together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be a comedy piece. Well, that went well...!

“He is not here.” 

Gaby knows without having to look that Illya’s hands have started shaking. It’s a sentiment she doesn’t exactly disagree with, but she’s well aware that both of them losing their shit isn’t going to accomplish a damn thing, so she takes a deliberate breath, says, “This is a big castle, Illya. There are plenty of other places to search.” 

Illya’s hand is white-knuckled around his silenced pistol. “We do not have time.” 

Gaby checks her watch, even though the counter in her head is still ticking away so she knows exactly how long they have left. “Fifteen minutes before the generators come back online,” she says. “I know. So shall we maybe stop standing around and instead start looking?” 

There’s a muscle jumping in Illya’s jaw. “The signal lead to this cell,” he says tightly. “There is no one here. So where are we supposed to look now?”

Gaby can’t help herself. She glances back through the bars of the cell, just once, at the highly-polished and highly-bugged shoes, smeared with mud and blood, at the expensive shirt, torn to tatters, at the dark suit and elegantly striped tie, crumpled and thrown aside and, most importantly, significantly lacking their owner. There’s no time for fear, not now, and so she’s not afraid, no, that can wait for later. Right now she’s thinking, running over the possibilities, because this is a big castle and they only have fifteen minutes until the generators snap back online. “Why would they take him out of his cell?” she asks, and it’s mostly rhetorical because she’s pretty sure Illya’s not really in a state to be answering right about now. She answers her own question: “If they’ve taken him out of here, it’s because they want a bigger space for interrogation. That at least means that he’s still alive, _must_ be still alive. Maybe they have specialised equipment elsewhere, I don’t know, some kind of torture chamber—”

Illya’s head snaps up. “On the blueprints,” he says. “There was a room marked _operating theatre_.”

Gaby can feel her heart thud faster. “Operating theatre,” she repeats. “You think—?”

“Yes,” Illya raps. “Follow me.” 

Gaby knows better than to argue. 

Napoleon Solo has been missing for two weeks. 

They were in Paris, the three of them, infiltrating a ring of exorbitantly-rich, highly-connected would-be world-destroyers, and at the end of a good day’s subterfuge and sabotage, Gaby slipped back into their hotel wanting nothing more than a hot shower and a long sleep to find Illya sat on the floor in her room, shoulders hunched, chest heaving. He didn’t have to say a word, just looked at her, and she’d been off, running down the corridor to Solo’s room. She found it trashed, upended, with a bloody smear worked deep into the pile of the cream carpet. 

Since then, they’ve been to Athens, to Florence, to Lisbon and finally here, to Budapest, to a glowering pile outside the city limits, and so far they’ve found nothing but blood and empty cells. Gaby’s trying not to give up, for Illya’s sake if nothing else, but it’s getting harder and harder. One some level, she thinks she’s started to grieve already, which is a little odd because at the beginning of this she never thought she’d be grieving for Solo. 

Illya isn’t taking any of this particularly well. What’s odd, though, is that he’s taking it worse than usual. Less simmering rage, more outright fury. 

The operating theatre is on one of the castle’s upper levels, and Illya leads them there with the unerring accuracy that Gaby’s come to expect. Their way is mercifully empty of guards and bad guys, although shouts and bursts of angry Hungarian come spilling down the corridors at regular intervals. Gaby’s wishing she spoke more Hungarian right about now, but that’s a thought that doesn’t have much relevance for long because they’re here, standing in front of a door marked _OPERATING THEATRE_ in bold, gold letters, and Gaby’s trying to hope but there’s been so much false hope in these past weeks. 

Illya glances to her, then reaches out and tries the handle. The door swings open without resistance—another nail in that hope coffin, really, because who leaves a prisoner in an unlocked room?—and Illya’s diving inside, hands still trembling but somehow keeping his gun as steady as it ever has been. 

Gaby takes a breath, doesn’t think about bloody shoes and a destroyed shirt. 

“ _Gaby!_ ” 

That’s Illya’s hissed call, and there’s a note in his voice that Gaby hasn’t heard for the last two weeks. Her heart thuds faster, faster, and she’s inside the heavy, gold-lettered door before she really thinks about what she’s doing because one of them needs to keep a watch, one of them has to keep their head about this whole thing, but that’s not really the point right now because she’s inside the operating theatre and _he’s there_. 

Solo’s naked and unconscious, strapped to a medical examination table, leather bands stretched across his wrists, his ankles, his chest, his thighs, his forehead. His body is a patchwork of bruises and abrasions, healed scars and freshly scabbed-over cuts – and, oh, his _shoulder_. His right shoulder is a mess, because someone has sliced and cut and pulled, and now there’s a thick slab of skin that’s dangling by a thread, leaving the flesh underneath bloody and exposed. Bile rises in Gaby’s throat, but she quashes it as quickly as she can. There’s no time for her to be sick in another corner. The generators will be back up soon. 

“Get his ankles,” Illya hisses, all business, gun holstered and hands already making quick work of the buckles around Solo’s wrists. “Eleven minutes.” 

Gaby knows. She takes two steps, holsters her own gun, starts to tug at the straps and tries not to think about how tight those straps have been pulled. She’s read Solo’s file, she knows the kind of pain he’s been put through in the past—some of it’s even been her fault, which is something she sometimes has nightmares about—but that doesn’t mean that someone _peeling your skin off_ gets any easier. 

Abruptly, she’s glad he’s unconscious. 

She unbuckles the ankle straps, moves to the thick band across his chest. “Exit strategy?” she raps to Illya, because that’s easier than all of this.

“Gamma exit,” Illya answers immediately, because they have multiple exits already planned from this hulk of a castle. “I will have to carry him. You will cover us.” Illya’s eyes are oddly soft. “Can you do that?”

Gaby nods sharply. “Yes,” she snaps, because she might not be as comfortable with all this as they are, might still throw up when she kills, might still shake through the night when things go bad, but this is Solo, this is their team, and she is not going to let anything happen to this team. She would never let anything happen to this team, because Illya brings her water after she throws up and Solo holds her through the worst of the terror, and they would do anything for her. So she will do anything for them. 

“Well, that’s lovely to hear, Gaby. You’re doing so well with all this, you know? I guess Waverly has a good eye for spies. Not that I’m hugely surprised.”

_That’s_ not Illya. 

Solo’s eyes are open and he’s looking up at them both, lazy, half-charming grin sprawled across his lips. “I mean,” he continues, “you only really have to look at Waverly to know that he’s been in this game a long time, quite possibly longer than any of us have been alive. He’s bound to have an eye for it by now. He also has an eye for a good scotch, too, have you noticed? Whenever he’s got a drink in hand, it’s the finest money can buy – and you can trust me on that, because I know my scotch. Do you know what else I know a lot about? _Art._ Not just stealing it, you understand, but art itself. The brushstrokes, the timbre of the colours, the deftness of the artist’s hand—”

Solo’s rambling. He’s rambling while still half-tied to a medical exam table, skin flapping away from his shoulder, and he shows no signs of stopping any time soon.

Gaby exchanges a confused glance with Illya, whose fingers have stilled on the strap across Solo’s forehead. He doesn’t appear to have any idea what’s going on either, and he looks down, fingers surprisingly light on Solo’s forehead, and says, “Cowboy. Are you okay?” 

Solo beams up at him. “Well, isn’t that a stupid question,” he says. “I’ve been peeled like an orange, Peril. Would you be okay? Well, of course you’d be okay, you could live through a damn nuclear holocaust, I’d wager, but—”

“You are talking,” Illya interrupts. “You are talking _a lot_. Why?”

“Drugs!” Solo says brightly. “A lot of drugs. More precisely, drugs including but not limited to sodium pentothal and a whole load of muscle relaxants. And something that feels a lot more recreational, that’s getting me loose and easy. I can feel everything, but I haven’t got a hope in hell of moving. Limp as a fish.” His teeth are bared in that grin. To Gaby, it’s looking more and more like a grimace. “They wanted information,” Solo supplies. “Lots of information, about us, about U.N.C.L.E., about Waverly, about a lot of things that I actually don’t know anything about. A lot of names being bandied about, double ohs, Kingsman. Never heard of them, but of course they weren’t exactly willing to take my word on that, so they did the usual, the pain and the torture, but then that didn’t work because that’s pretty old hat by now, so they went for the drugs. Which were more effective, and I could feel them working, feel myself about to give us all up, so I had to find a way to stop myself. Which involves telling them the truth, yes, but telling them the truth about _everything_.” He grins wider. “They got a hell of an earful about my sexual history, I’ll tell you that, and I think that riled them up so much that they dragged me back in here and figured that torture _and_ truth serum was maybe the way to go. They’d just got started when the lights went out, and hey, I’m guessing that was you guys? Thanks for that. I couldn’t’ve lasted much longer.” It’s a statement of fact, simple and without fear, and that sends chills through Gaby’s gut. Solo seems not to notice his own candour, though, because he just blinks, pauses, takes a breath. “Speaking of which,” he says. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

Gaby’s been so transfixed that she’d forgotten about the looming deadline, and she’d feel worse about that if the sudden jerk in Illya’s hands didn’t mean that he’d forgotten, too. 

This operating theatre seems at some point to have actually been an operating theatre, so there’s a cupboard in the corner where Gaby finds gauze, bandages, and a loose hospital gown. They wrap Solo’s shoulder as fast as they can manage, and through the whole thing he’s still talking, still rambling—“Your skin looks _fantastic_ today, Gaby, almost glowing. New moisturiser?”—up until Illya hefts him up over his shoulder, hospital gown barely covering his backside, and then he seems to get the wind knocked out of him somewhat. 

Gaby can’t say that she’s entirely sad about that. Solo talks enough as it is. 

Exit gamma works as efficiently as they planned it to. They take the back route out of the castle, through the disused kitchens, down an old access tunnel to the van they left parked in a secluded grove. It’s raining outside, hammering on the van’s windows, and Gaby drives while Illya stays in the back with Solo, unbinding their temporary wrappings to rewrap and rebind. That’s when Solo starts talking again, Gaby’s guessing so that he doesn’t have to focus on the pain, and she’s personally glad that she doesn’t have to look. She focuses on the road, doesn’t think about Solo’s shoulder, guides them through the rain and the half-made roads, heading for the boat that’s waiting for them on the river just south of Budapest. 

Gaby ignores the ever-flowing stream of words from the backseat—“Have you ever been to Australia, Peril?”—and calls it in, gets Waverly on the phone and reports that they’ve recovered Solo with more than a little relief seeping through her voice. Waverly acknowledges in his usual brief style, then says, “ _His condition?_ ”

Gaby pauses for a second, then says, “He needs a doctor, but his life isn’t in danger.”

“ _Good._ ” Waverly almost sounds happy. “ _I’ll make sure there’s a medic waiting for you at the extraction point. Rendezvous in London, at the usual place, as soon as you can._ ”

“Understood,” Gaby says, and puts the phone down. She keeps her eyes on the road, on the rain, on the swathes of green country that’s passing them by. 

Solo still hasn’t stopped talking. Gaby forces herself not to smile. 

“You should stop talking,” Illya rasps after a good ten minutes of Solo’s musings on the state of Anglo-American relations through the joint prisms of Waverly and Sanders. “You are very irritating.” 

Gaby can hear Solo’s grin. “Thank you, Peril,” he beams. “I think that’s what my erstwhile captors thought as well, so it’s nice to know that I have a consistent effect across the board.” 

Illya’s voice is brusque. “I do not appreciate being compared to those _people_ ,” he spits. 

Gaby makes a left down a narrow backstreet, then hears: “Well, I’m sure you can forgive me for thinking that you might not be wholly opposed to the idea of hurting me. I do seem to recall that the last time we saw each other you punched me in the face.”

“Cowboy,” Illya hisses. 

“Which was quite confusing, you know, considering what you’d been doing a minute before—”

“ _Solo!_ ”

“—because I think it’s pretty damn rude to kiss a guy back, give him a damn good kiss, at that, and then lay him out on the floor!” 

Gaby almost chokes. 

There’s a brief commotion in the back of the van, and then Illya’s looming over her shoulder, his hands white-knuckled on the seatback. “Stop the van,” he snaps.

“What?” Gaby asks.

“ _Stop the van,_ ” Illya practically barks. 

Gaby reacts on instinct, pulls the van into the side of the road and cuts the engine. She knows better than to argue with him when he’s in this mood and, to be honest, her brain’s a little fried by what she just probably really shouldn’t have heard. Illya? Kissing Solo? Not that that’s not an amazing image or anything, but _wow_. 

“Out,” Illya says shortly. “I will drive now.” 

Gaby does as she’s told, and within sixty seconds they’re jolting back onto the road, Illya’s foot hard on the accelerator. Gaby takes the back with Solo, sits crosslegged beside him and inspects Illya’s handiwork. By which she means the bandage wrapped around his shoulder and the butterfly sutures on the worst of the cuts, not the wounded expression that’s currently splashed across his face. He looks up at her almost mournfully, and, yeah, she can tell that he’s doped up and exhausted. Solo’s never this open. “Was it something I said?” he asks.

Gaby tries not to roll her eyes. “Yes, I think so,” she answers, then pulls his head into her lap. “But don’t think about it now. Go to sleep. We’ll be here.” 

Solo’s eyelids are already drooping. “I know you will be,” he mumbles in the moments before he passes out, “but I’m a little less certain about Peril there.” 

Gaby doesn’t have to look to know that Illya’s shoulders are hunched and guilty. 

Solo sleeps the rest of the way to the rendezvous point. Gaby’s pretty sure from the slackness of his lips and the flickering of his eyes that it’s the best sleep he’s had in a fortnight, and she keeps his head in her lap, runs her fingers through his hair—soft and uncombed, empty of anything near to the maelstrom of products it’s usually laced with—and tries not to think about how long it took them to find him. Tries not to think about how she was so close to losing hope. 

When they pull up at the small dock south of Budapest, there’s a stretcher and a medic already waiting for them. The medic and his assistant manage to get Solo out of the van without waking him, and Gaby gives them a list of the drugs they think he’s been pumped with before they dare adding anything else to the cocktail. They’re all shepherded onto the boat, a small, clean affair with two cabins and one of the most beautiful engines Gaby’s ever seen, and when they’re on the water, sluicing down the Danube with Solo comfortably asleep in one of the cabins, Gaby finds Illya standing at the prow, hair ruffled by the wind and expression black as thunder. 

She goes and stands beside him, hands level on the railing, feet balanced shoulder-width apart. She’s still in her blacks, polo neck chafing under her ears, still has Solo’s blood on her hands, under her nails along with the dirt and the sweat, but she knows that this can’t wait. “Want to talk about what I heard in the van?” she asks softly. 

If it’s physically possible, Illya’s shoulders hunch even tighter. “No.” 

Gaby’s lips purse. “That wasn’t a request,” she says. “Talk to me.”

“It is none of your business.” 

Thing is, though, it is, because Gaby knows all too well what Illya Kuryakin is like. He was perfectly happy to smile and flirt and almost-kiss during the Vinciguerra affair, when it was a one-off mission and they were never going to see each other again. That was fine, that was perfectly fine. It was just when it sank in that they _were_ going to see each other again, that they were going to be seeing a lot of each other again that he started keeping his distance, started turning away her approaches, started sharing meals with Solo instead of her. He never quite explained why, but Gaby’s not an idiot. Attraction to a one-time thing is fine. Attraction to a partner? _Feelings_ for a partner? That’s dangerous. That leads to mistakes and risk and the whole world falling apart, but Gaby only figured that all out when it was too late, when the fire in her gut had already burned out – no, not burned out, _changed_ , changed into the swell of sibling affection. Illya is her brother, now, and she wouldn’t change that for the world, but sometimes she wonders. Wonders what could have been, if she’d seen that tipping point coming before it was already in her rear view mirror. 

Gaby’s getting the feeling that Illya’s dancing around that same tipping point once again. 

She turns to face him, leaning one elbow against the rail, and before he can start to protest that that’s not a safe way to stand, she says, “Illya. Look at me.” 

It takes a moment, but he does. There’s blood smeared across his cheek, and Gaby reaches out, scrubs it off with her thumb, then rubs at his jaw affectionately. “You can’t run away from him like you did from me,” she says, and if there’s melancholy and half-regret in that tone, well, she can live with that.

Guilt flashes in Illya’s eyes. “Gaby, I did not mean—”

She cuts him off with an arched eyebrow. “This isn’t about you and me,” she says. “This is about you and Solo.”

Illya’s eyes shutter, and he turns back out to watch the water slide past. “There is no me and Solo,” he says. “Not in the way that you mean.”

“I’m sure,” Gaby says dryly. “So Solo was lying, in the van? Somehow making things up under the influence of a truth serum?”

Illya doesn’t answer. There are spots of colour high on his cheeks but his hands are steady. 

“I thought not,” Gaby says. She watches him for a moment, then steps closer, bumps her shoulder against his. “You ran away from him,” she says, and it’s not a question.

Illya’s quiet for a moment, and then he huffs an almost-laugh, says, “I did a little more than run. I hit him. Hard. And then when I came to his room a day later, he was gone.” 

Gaby winces. It explains why Illya’s been so particularly taciturn this past fortnight, why he’s barely slept, why he’s snapped more necks than she’s ever seen before. That’s a bad note to end on with someone you—

And there’s a question. Someone you what? 

Illya’s jaw is tight. “It is not a good idea,” he says. “Cowboy knows that. It is dangerous for partners to even be friends. Trust, yes, trust is essential, but friendship? Friendship is lethal. Friendship gets everyone killed.” 

“Our track record would disagree,” Gaby observes. “The three of us, we’re friends. And we haven’t failed yet.” 

“We came very close this time,” Illya says softly. “If we had not found him in Budapest, then the trail would be cold. He would be lost to us, and he would have died at his captors’ hands, eventually, after torture and pain.” He shakes his head. “No. It is bad idea. Very bad idea.” 

His accent’s thickening. Gaby knows oh so well what that means, because underneath the Soviet stoicism Illya is a passionate man, full of hate and loyalty and fear and maybe even love. “I would say it’s a bit late to run away,” she says.

Illya looks at her sideways. His lips are tight. “I do not run.”

Gaby arches an eyebrow. “Oh? Is this not running? You made me pull over when we were in the middle of an escape because you didn’t want to be in the back with him anymore.”

“See? Bad idea. Makes people do stupid things.” 

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I would never _dare_.” It’s laced with Illya’s quiet humour, and he offers her half a smile, bumps her shoulder in return. “I understand what you are trying to do,” he says. “It is very sweet, but it is not necessary. This cannot go anywhere. He will understand that, and then we will have what we have.” He gestures between them. “Loyalty without… complication.” 

Gaby’s finding it hard to breathe. “Complication,” she repeats flatly. “ _Complication._ ”

To his credit, Illya seems to realise he’s said something stupid the moment it’s out of his mouth. “I did not mean—”

“No,” Gaby interrupts. “No, I’m sure you didn’t mean to imply that the people who risk their lives for you on a daily basis are nothing more than _complications_. Are you even listening to yourself, Illya? After all this time you can’t hold us at arm’s length, because _that_ is a bad idea. That is what ruins trust and loyalty.” Her heart is thudding in her chest, now, harder than it ever did when they were pacing through the corridors of that Hungarian pile. “Don’t you think that it would have helped Solo this past fortnight if he knew that there was someone out there who cared enough to move the _world_ to get him back?” 

“Gaby—”

Gaby holds up her hand. “No,” she says. “No, Illya, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. If we are nothing but _complications_ to you, if Solo and I are just getting between you and your perfect track record, then _leave_.” She can’t hear anything above the thud of her own heart. “ _Leave us_. I don’t want to risk my life for someone who doesn’t care enough to risk himself for mine.” 

She turns on her heel. Illya doesn’t get a chance to answer. 

Gaby heads down below, easily keeping her balance on the roiling boat, and slips into the room they left Solo in. It’s tucked away in the prow of the boat so it’s vaguely triangular, with the bed taking up the top two thirds of the triangle and the remainder being empty space. Solo’s still asleep, hair brushed flat across his forehead, and the blankets are drawn up around his chest, hiding the worse of the damage. His shoulder has been rebandaged for the third time today, and Gaby has no desire to see what’s underneath. The medic told her that he’s done his best, that he’s removed the excess skin because there’s nothing to save that, now, that he’s packed the wound and wrapped it up, and that there’s nothing left to do but let it heal. 

Gaby gets onto the bed beside him, leans her back against the wall of the berth and runs her hand through Solo’s hair. She would hold him on her lap like he’s held her on his so many times but she doesn’t want to wake him by jostling his shoulder, so she just keeps on running her hand through his hair, over and over, soft and yielding, until the exhaustion of the day finally catches up to her and she sleeps. 

The stars are bright in the night sky. 

Gaby wakes in the middle of the night to the cabin door opening, and her hand’s going for her thigh holster even before she’s fully alert. Her gun’s pointing at the door in an instant, and she tenses low over Solo, ready to fight, ready to defend. 

Illya’s expression is hidden in shadow. “May I come in?”

Solo stirs at her side, but Gaby just runs her fingers through his hair until he quiets. He needs to sleep, to heal, not to wake and worry about their repressed Russian partner. “If you don’t wake him,” she says tartly. 

Illya doesn’t respond to that, just slips inside and closes the door behind him. “May I stay?” 

Gaby studies him for a long moment. “That depends,” she says finally. 

“On what?” 

Gaby lifts her chin. “On whether you’ll be here in the morning,” she says defiantly. 

Illya’s gaze is heavy. “I would never abandon you,” he says levelly, then looks away from her, looks at Solo, and Gaby sees the softness in his eyes that she used to see when he looked at her. Oddly enough, that doesn’t hurt, and Illya says, “I would never abandon _him_. In anything.” 

Gaby thinks about the softness in Illya’s eyes, about the way her heart used to flutter whenever they were in the same room, and then she thinks about now, about how when he holds her through the nightmares it’s so much more intimate than sex could ever be. “I know,” she says. “I know.” 

Illya doesn’t smile, but, then again, he rarely does. 

There’s not enough room for the three of them on the bed, so Gaby curls up around Solo while Illya slots himself into the space that’s left at the foot of the bed. It’s far too cramped and the warmth of their bodies makes the tiny space almost unbearably warm after a while, but Gaby’s not about to move and she doesn’t think she could make Illya leave if she wanted to. She falls asleep to the sleeping whisper of Solo’s breathing and Illya’s steady watchfulness, and when she dreams, she dreams about Solo telling her her skin is beautiful and not about his skin sloughing off as he screams for them to save him. 

In the morning, Gaby’s woken by the sound of her name. 

She blinks awake, ignoring the pain in her back from the awkward sleeping position, and looks down into Solo’s bright eyes. He’s smiling, and it’s not the half-lucid, sloppy drug-grin he was wearing yesterday, no, it’s just charm and ease. “Good morning,” he says. “What a lovely sight to wake up to.”

Gaby would hit him, but she figures that right now that might do some serious damage. She settles for a quick glare, then says, “How are you feeling?”

“Better than I was twenty-four hours ago,” Solo says. His eyes are almost soft. “A lot better, in fact. I think I have you to thank for that.”

Gaby shrugs, because a shrug is easier than an acknowledgement of the fact that they came so close to losing him. “We couldn’t exactly leave you behind,” she says. 

“Ah, yes,” Solo says. “ ‘We’.” He glances down towards where Illya’s head is clearly visible above the top of the bed. He’s still fast asleep, and Solo says, “I said some things yesterday, didn’t I? A lot of it’s fuzzy—that’ll be all the drugs—but I remember that.” He looks back to Gaby. “I’m surprised he’s still here.” 

Gaby’s lips twist. “Maybe he’s done enough running away,” she says. 

Solo’s expression is almost wistful, not that he’d ever admit it. “That would be nice.” 

Gaby runs her hand through his hair, presses a gentle kiss to his forehead. “It’s good to have you back,” she says softly. 

Solo doesn’t say anything in response but, then again, he doesn’t have to. 

Illya sleeps on at their feet, and neither of them says a word. 

 

They rendezvous with Waverly in London, and in what Gaby reckons is probably a gesture to apologise for the whole not-keeping-their-location-hidden-and-getting-Solo-captured thing, they’re put up in the Savoy. Gaby spends a full six hours in the spa, and for at least four of those hours Solo is lying right there beside her, cucumber on his eyes and dressing gown tied tight around the bandaged wound in his shoulder. 

The debrief with Waverly is quick and supremely unapologetic. Gaby figures she probably shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s still difficult to deal with when Solo leaves the meeting still limping from a severely sprained ankle that no one had realised was even an issue until the drugs wore off. Illya’s hovering, though, waiting for even the faintest hint of a slip, and so Gaby leaves them, figures that there’s pretty much nothing worse that could happen. She goes into London, wanders the streets, gets lost in Knightsbridge and then spends half an hour just sitting on the banks of the Thames, watching the lights flicker in the water. She listens to herself breath, doesn’t think about blood and suffering and responsibility, just thinks about light and safety and the softness of her bed in the Savoy.

When she gets back to the hotel, it’s gone midnight.

She knows that she ought to just go back to her room, get into bed and fall asleep as fast as she can. She also knows that that’s absolutely not going to be happening any time soon, so she doesn’t bother even trying. 

Solo is two floors below her and three doors along, and she knows logically that he’s fine, that he’s healing and there’s enough MI6 around this hotel that he’s never going to be taken away from them again, but that still doesn’t quiet the need in her heart. She has to see him. She has to know that he’s okay, because she almost gave up on him and _that_ is something that’s going to haunt her for a long time. So she goes to room 207, padding along the carpeted hallways without a sound – and her hand is already on the doorknob before she hears it. 

Two voices, inside room 207. One Solo’s distinctive drawl. The other? Just as distinctive and with just as large a place in Gaby’s heart. 

Gaby pauses for a second, just to make sure that nothing’s going to be thrown or punched or kidnapped, and then when she hears something that sounds suspiciously like _love_ , followed by a startled Russian curse, she figures that she should probably leave them to it. She’ll tease them in the morning, something about _took your time_ and _so glad I could lend a helping hand_ , but for now? For now she’ll let them be. It’s good enough that someone can find some happiness in all of this.

Gaby goes back to her room, to room 405, and goes to bed. When she dreams, she dreams about them, about her team, about Illya and Napoleon, Kuryakin and Solo, Peril and Cowboy, and in her dreams she’s the only thing that fits between them. 

 

__

_finis_


End file.
